Armenian elections results: first thoughts

CAUCASUS / CENTRAL ASIA - In Brief 08 Jun 2026 by Ivan Tchakarov

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The CEC has just announced the preliminary results from yesterday's vote (final tally must be submitted by law within 7 days of the election). Here are the key takeaways as I see them:1. The election was hotly contested in a polarized society. The turnout, at roughly 59%, was higher than the 2018 and 2021 elections by about 10% reflecting the higher stakes of the issues at hand.2. Pashinyan's Civil Contract carried the day by plurality winning 49.81% of the votes. Strong Armenia came second with 23.29%, Armenia Alliance third with 9.94% and the Prosperous Armenia Party fourth with 4.00%. These are the parties that will form the next National Assembly. 3. Mandates will be distributed as follows: Civil Contract - 61 seats, Strong Armenia Alliance - 28 seats, Armenia Alliance – 11 seats, and Prosperous Armenia Party - 5 seats. The 4 largest national minorities (Yezidis, Russians, Assyrians and Kurds) get 4 seats by law. These are distributed proportionally among the 4 parties, so that 3 of them go Civil Contract and one to Strong Armenia. The National Assembly will thus have 105 seats.4. Critically, Pashinyan fails to get either the 2/3 super majority (70 seats) or the 3/5 majority (63 seats) needed to initiate changes in the Constitution as I described here. 5. He will, of course, be able to form a government of his own as he satisfies the 52% stable majority rule. 6. The market will likely cheer the results despite the big problem that Pashinyan will now have pushing through Constitutional Changes. I suspect that Azerbaijan, Turkey and the West will also breathe a sigh of relief given they feared an opposition win. I aslo think that these four players will seek to keep ...